


Days, Weeks, Months, Years

by tentacledicks



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Captivity, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Breakdown, Panic Attacks, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-29 02:24:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18769273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tentacledicks/pseuds/tentacledicks
Summary: It’s hard to tell how long he’s been in Hell.It’s harder still to remember how to live above of it again.





	Days, Weeks, Months, Years

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Amelia041223](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amelia041223/gifts).



Hell, when it came down to it, wasn’t creative. Crowley’s stack of commendations attested to that fact—humans had always outdone demons in sheer, cruel innovation, and Crowley had benefited from that in ways both direct and less so.

What Hell had was patience.

What Crowley had, unfortunately, was time.

There was no way to track it Down Below, which was half the point. Sensory deprivation, solitary confinement, the long drag of dreadful waiting—humans were ingenious at coming up with new ways to hurt each other, but Hell was good at perfecting the old tricks. They didn’t need electroshock therapy or waterboarding or funny little devices with too many screws and not enough room for the body parts they were meant for. Hell had cages, far away from anything to take the mind off of the torment to come. Hell had an infinite amount of spite to be doled out accordingly. Hell had _knives_.

Crowley had a great deal of surface area between the skin and the wings. Things would have been much better if he hadn’t.

But there weren’t any other demons around right now, the knives all racked up and the chains locking him down again. He was alone, which would be fantastic except for the fact that it gave him too much room to _think._ Compared to other demons, Crowley prided himself on having a vivid imagination and a creative mind that let him keep pace with humanity's innovation. It was backfiring now. Spectacularly.

Because, see, the thing about being left alone down here for however long they would leave him was that Crowley’s mind played tricks. That was the part they never told you about, that when humanity rubbed off on you, it left things like _delusions_ behind. It left behind hope, and dreams, and the strong belief that something good was _bound_ to happen eventually, because it had to, because he’d been down here for so long, because—

But it never did. It _never_ did. He played it out in his head one, two, five, ten, a dozen times, down there alone in the dank little cell they’d given him because snakes were cold-blooded and the chill _hurt_. Some glorious arrival of trumpets, Aziraphale riding down from on high. Some shuffling and swearing, Aziraphale sneaking around in Hell like he couldn’t ever get caught. Some absurd, unbelievable, unthinkable scenario where Crowley was _here_ and then he _wasn’t_ , because rescue was coming.

He had friends, didn’t he?

Friends who would object to his scales being peeled off one by one, friends who would think that the acid was a bit much, friends who would say, “Right, the knives and the skinning thing, that was a laugh, but we can stop now.” Maybe not… so _many_ friends as he used to have, back in the old days when demons roaming the surface of the Earth ran into each other constantly. Back before he’d started hanging out with the Enemy, who was an absolute bastard anyways so Crowley felt he ought to be grandfathered in.

Didn’t matter. If he had friends in the ranks of Hell, he’d burned that bridge. There wasn’t any way for Aziraphale to reach him down here, and no reason for Adam—the one person who _could_ probably stroll through without problem—to look.

It was just Crowley, huddled in the corner of his cell, waiting for the rest of them to return and get on with whatever torture they’d decided on this time. Hell wasn’t creative but they were _thorough_ , and Crowley was beginning to see that thorough was worse. Much, much, worse.

There was the scrape of a key in the lock and he huddled even tighter, drawing his wings in close to his back. It wouldn’t help, but it would stave things off for a couple seconds before they could get on with it.

“Oh, my dear,” said what was _definitely_ a hallucination, because Aziraphale couldn’t possibly be here. “Let’s get you out of here.”

Which was great, really. Could demons go crazy? Stupid question, of course they could. If he was crazy, would it make it easier to forget all the terrible things they were going to do to him? Mixed reviews, so it was hard to tell.

Crowley didn’t lift his head, because if his mind was supplying Aziraphale’s voice then he wasn’t going to overburden it with trying to visualize him too. Though, if he had the choice, he’d imagine him in something other than that hideous outfit he’d always worn. Something stylish. Maybe in merino wool.

The hand that rested on his shoulder was delicate, soft, the hand of someone who’d seemed like he’d never lifted anything heavier or more dangerous than a book. It wasn’t the sort of hand any of his other torturers would have, but they were always coming up with different ways to fuck with his head. Playing into the delusion this time _was_ new, he’d give them that. Ten points to Hell. Finally figured out how to be creative.

“Crowley,” said the hallucination that wasn’t Aziraphale, “I’m taking you up now. It may be unpleasant.”

_That_ was a laugh too, because leaving Hell took absolute ages of paperwork. Requesting a new body alone could eat up a year in pointless bureaucracy, not to mention the mess of figuring out who to report to, which department headed which sections of Earth in jurisdiction, and when the secretaries all got shuffled because some Prince decided to try out the human concept of ‘corporate reorganization’ _everything_ would be up in the air until someone got fed up and sorted it out themselves—

There was a lurch, not unlike the jolt before a roller coaster cart headed down the hill, and then everything was rushing by nauseatingly fast. With another lurch, he went from _not_ having a body to _very much_ having a body. And then, in a pile of limbs and feathers, naked skin and tweed, they were not in Hell.

He was not in Hell.

Aziraphale’s hands were cupping his face, Aziraphale’s voice was asking him if he was okay, Aziraphale’s body was next to his on the king-sized bed in his flat and _he was not in Hell_.

* * *

It wasn’t that his old flat reminded him of Down Below so much—and he was staunchly not thinking about it, because thinking about a thing gave it power—because for one, other demons had no sense of style, and for two, it was _his_ bloody flat. But Crowley’s personal sense of aesthetics ran towards clean and unlived in, perfectly fashionable in how modern and pruned down it was. Even without his own particular decorating quirks, it was a mostly lifeless space, plucked from the pages of magazines for maximum style over substance.

And it had been empty for a very long time before Aziraphale had dragged him back up here. The emptiness was what grated, rubbing against his nerves like a hand sliding backwards on his scales, peeling them up one by one.

The silk sheets could have been steel wool for all the comfort they brough. Flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling, Crowley tried to convince his body that there weren’t needles driven up under his skin, knives separating meat from bone, the sly, insidious voice reminding him that this was just a _taste_ of what Hell had to offer. It didn’t matter that _this_ incorporation had never been up on the rack; didn’t matter that he hadn’t had flesh or blood or bone in the literal sense Down Below anyways. His memories kept trying to drag him back down anyways, running claws just blunt enough to ruin him over his stomach until it was all he could do to stay flat and not curled up tight.

Aziraphale was out there in the flat somewhere, possibly considering the delicate (spoiled) foodwares in his modern (outdated) fridge. Possibly judging Crowley’s (lack of) books or the beloved (dead) plants. If he raised his voice just enough, the angel would come back to the bedroom, fussy and warm and _there_ , ready to drag him out of the ruin of his thoughts like he’d dragged Crowley out of the depths—

(And then, still, the whisper that said, ‘This is all a dream. You’re making this up. The real reason you can feel the knives against your useless, useless organs is because you’re still here, with us. The knives are real. The needles are real. The burn along your nerves is real, real, real, because you’re down here _forever_ , Crawly, and forever is going to be a very long time after that stunt you pulled.’)

He breathed, because it was a habit, and tasted the stale, dusty air that lacked even a hint of sulfur.

The sheets dragged back against his skin that wasn’t scales as he sat up and buried his head in his hands. Sleeping was a habit he’d lost, a luxury he couldn’t afford Down Below and couldn’t get the knack of again, and it pained him as much as it infuriated him. Sprawling out on a couch, curling up in one of Aziraphale’s comfortable chairs, tangling his limbs in the bed sheets as he took up as much space as possible—none of it was possible now. Not with the drag of needles under his skin, trying to bury themselves deeper still.

Beside him, the mattress sank a bit. Aziraphale smelled of old books, warm tea, and something clear and cold like the upper atmosphere, a combination that no demon above or Below could mimic. Even when he moved silently into the room, there was a level of awareness Crowley had for him, borne of centuries of close combat and centuries more of closer contact. If they met on a battlefield, Crowley could pick him out of the horde.

Aziraphale’s hands were soft and smooth and very unlike blades when they gently tugged Crowley’s fingers out of his hair.

“Perhaps,” he said in his low, melodious voice, “staying here was a poor choice.”

Crowley laughed and tried not to think about how hysterical it sounded. “Maybe a bit. Are—”

And that’s where he stopped, because there wasn’t any good question he could ask. ‘Are you sure saving me was a good choice’ was just laughably pathetic when they’d already jumped in to thwart the end-that-wasn’t, but ‘are any of the plants still alive’ was too earnest, too sensitive to ask even Aziraphale. He didn’t want to think of them fighting to stay green and vibrant and alive, shivering in fear from the knowledge that the first to falter would be sacrificed. It had been days-weeks-months-years and none of them could possibly still be around and _yet_ —

Clever bastard that he was, Aziraphale saw right to the truth of it anyways. He took Crowley’s hands in his own, rubbed the soft pads of his fingers over the rise of bone where Crowley’s knuckles pressed white into his skin, and sighed.

“Well, if you’re not going to sleep anyways, I see no reason why we need a bed. And I have a _very_ fine vintage that remains unopened, so we ought to take care of that.” When he stood, it was with an unthinking authority that left no room for argument, tugging Crowley to his feet too. His hands left only long enough to drop some of Crowley’s designer clothes in his arms, and then it was a mess of poking and prodding and fussing until they were at the front door, like it was any other day (from so long ago) and they were ready to head out on the town.

Crowley did not lock the flat up when they left.

His Bentley was not resting insolently on the curb, another jarring difference that sliced through his core like a hot (poker pushing into his body-that-wasn’t because Hell wasn’t innovative but it was very good at _perfecting_ things) knife through butter. Vaguely, he remembered parking it outside of a (trap) restaurant he’d planned to take Aziraphale to one day, but the location itself was a mystery. The likelihood that it had gone unmolested was low. The likelihood that he would find it again was lower.

Beside him, Aziraphale was a warm bastion of normalcy. Everything else might be (wrong) different, but after millenia of chasing each other’s tails, it was impossible for Aziraphale to feel anything other than familiar. Their shoulders brushed with every other step, the ugly tartan of Aziraphale’s jacket sliding smoothly over the leather of Crowley’s own, and as long as he focused in on that, everything else faded away.

Take a step, forget how it felt to have his toes broken. Take a breath, forget how it felt to drown in mercury. Brush his fingers against Aziraphale’s sleeve and remind himself that this was real.

(‘Or is it?’ his traitorous mind whispered, because he’d thought this all before.)

The shabby front of the book shop finally entered his vision, as comfortably familiar as Aziraphale was. Most of the first editions Adam had supplied were tucked away now, Aziraphale’s shelves slowly filling with rare tomes of a more adult persuasion again. The fact that they weren’t fully stacked yet was strangely reassuring—time flew everywhere else but _here_. Aziraphale had always been stuck in the past.

They didn’t stop in the front, where Crowley still had the sensation memory of (acid, so like but so far away from holy water) the shop burning down around him, Aziraphale heading inexorably for the back and dragging him along in his wake. This body had never experienced that, had never stood at the beginning of the end with a tire iron in his hands, hadn’t gotten drunk to the point of stupidity because the final battle was coming and he couldn’t bring himself to stand across the field from his oldest, dearest friend. But _Crowley_ had, thoughts laying memories into the skin of this shape, and he only wished that it had chosen to stick with the good ones.

He didn’t sit at the little table they (used to) usually sat at, flopping onto the comfortable little loveseat instead. Wine in hand, Aziraphale settled next to him, pouring them both generous glasses before leaning back into the cushions that smelled faintly, but permanently, of biscuits being baked. Crowley was fairly certain Aziraphale had never baked a day in his life, but the smell lingered nonetheless.

(‘Could I imagine _that_?’ he argued with himself, hating how easily the whisper hissed, ‘ _yessss_ ,’ in response.)

There were a dozen well-trodden subjects he could pick to talk about, all of them so familiar that their arguments about them were a practiced dance. There were a hundred more that he could leap into without thinking, keeping slightly more on his toes because sometimes one of them would switch sides just for the fun of it. There were a thousand memories he could start in on, knowing that Aziraphale was there for all of them and willing to pick up the thread with fond reminiscence whenever Crowley faltered.

It wasn’t even like he’d been Down Below for (days-weeks-months-years) long, comparatively. They’d spent more time on opposing sides of human wars than he’d spent in that hole he kept refusing to think about. Bless it but they’d spent more time _actually_ opposed to each other than he’d spent with that sibilant, nasty voice clawing its way into his head while his torturers clawed their way into _him_. Once upon a time, Aziraphale would have been the thing he was afraid of, not—

(And what was worse, the cold or the heat? Both of them ruined him for anything but pain, the stakes driving through his wings carrying whatever torment it was in the moment. There was no mercy to be had and he wasn’t stupid enough to ask for it but oh, it hurt in a relentless way that never grew mundane. Hell was not creative, but Hell was so very, very good at carrying out the procedures it had carved into stone.)

—the things he was afraid of now. The things he would not think about, even after three glasses of a very (useless) good wine that he (couldn’t even taste) was _enjoying very much_.

Things that Aziraphale, bless him, _damn_ him, wasn’t asking about.

If he asked, Crowley would tell him, but deep in his gut, he knew the angel wouldn’t ask. Not for lack of interest, or because there was any subject in the world that they would summarily avoid, but because he, like the torturers Down Below, was patient. When, and only when, Crowley could tell him without asking, _that_ would be when Aziraphale finally tried to figure out the things that made him flinch with every clink of (chains against blades against exposed bone) the wine bottle on the edge of the glass.

After a thousand years of friendship, it was easy to read that knowledge in the way Aziraphale didn’t ask.

The memories of every little horror inflicted on his body kept trying to intrude in on the _now_ and Crowley took the easy way out. He couldn’t (wouldn’t) talk about it, not yet, but if Down Below was going to try and chase him up here, he’d just have to find something that their hands hadn’t ever touched.

He tipped over sideways, dropped his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder and shut his eyes. Memories tried to well up like bile from a wound, but Aziraphale’s elegant fingers pushed their way into his hair and it—stopped. It all stopped, for a bit. Long enough for him to remember what it was like to breathe without pain again.

“Mind if I stay?” he asked, unnecessarily.

“As long as you need, my dear,” Aziraphale said, just like he’d always known he would.


End file.
